Superhumans breaking barriers at the Olympics and Paralympics

If Olympians are superhumans, then so are Paralympians.

Many sports in the Paralympic Games are played using wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. These aids are used by the physically challenged to fill in for their disability, bringing a minus to zero. In some cases, they even turn a minus into a plus.

Markus Rehm, a German athlete and long jump gold medalist at London Paralympic games, set the world record for the long jump at 8m40cm during the IPC Athletics World Championships at Doha, Qatar. His jump was higher than that of both the gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics (8m34cm) and the gold medalist at the London Olympics (8m31cm). I believe that it is only a matter of time before the Paralympics surpasses the Olympics.

Oscar Pistorius, an athlete with two prosthetic legs, was a trailblazer for Paralympians. In 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a decision made by International Association of Athletics Federations and allowed Pistorius to participate in the Olympics. He ran the men's 400m race and the men's 4 × 400m relay race. He also participated in the Paralympics held immediately after, running the 100m, 200, 400m, and 4 x 100m races. This made him the first amputee runner to participate in both games.

Both Pistorius' and Rehm's prosthetic legs were viewed with awe by sports fans. Artificial legs are no longer considered targets of pity, and are now seen as radiant proofs of power.

"There is no longer a barrier between the Olympics and Paralympics. We should just combine the two."

"No, that would be unfair. Even if our bodies perform worse than machines, it is exactly because we compete with our bodies that the Olympics have value. The two games should be kept separate."

"People wear glasses to correct their sight. They are an aid for people with poor vision. Yet, people who wear glasses are allowed to compete in the Olympics. Should we not we let people who wear prosthetic limbs compete too?"

"Glasses and prosthetic limbs are not the same. Glasses have widespread social acceptance to the point that some people even wear them as a fashion item. No one does that with prosthetic limbs."

The debate is a difficult one. Even if the Paralympics do surpass the Olympics, the soft barrier of tolerance might only be replaced with a hard barrier of rejection.

From our point of view, it is as though the Paralympians have become a privileged class. If we consider Olympians to be natural superhumans and Paralympians to be superhumans with machines, we can be part of the first group, but never the latter.

The door to the Olympics may be open to us, but if we cannot become superhumans, then we cannot participate. The door to the Paralympics is closed to begin with, and that is where the best superhumans are today. This is unfair.

Of course, there are some sports that non-disabled people could participate in, such as wheelchair basketball. However, the only way for us to wear a prosthetic leg like Rehm is to cut off one of our own. While possible, it is by no means a satisfying solution.

I believe that this is because we when think of sports, we only consider ancient sports and agrarian society sports. What we need to do is create a new sport for the 21st century, a sport to represent the information society. We should put our heads together and come up with a sport from scratch that can be played with the same set of rules by the disabled and non-disabled, the young and old, men and women, Olympians and Paralympians, and all other people.